London airports surge ahead

Figures now available show that in the 12 months until the end of March 149,002,951 passengers passed through London’s six airports, a rise of 6% on the previous year.

For the UK regions the growth was 3.9% widening the gap between the provinces and the nation’s capital.  In percentage terms 60% of UK air passengers use London.  With cargo it is 77%.

Broken down Heathrow is 74m (1.8% increase), Gatwick 39m (7.7%), Stansted 21m (16.1% but still way short of its 2007 24m), Luton 11m (10.8% taking it past Edinburgh as the nation’s 5th busiest airport), London City 3.9m (13.4%) and Southend 1m (5.6%).

Manchester remains the UK’s third place in terms of passenger throughput at 22m (7.2%).

The sad case is Prestwick, owned by the Government of Scotland, which lost 25% of its passengers and is down to 831,000 for the last 12 months.  It also peaked in 2007 with 2.4m.  Trying to reduce the Air Passenger Duty (APD) will not be the magic formula. 

Research was by Mott McDonald.     www.aviation.mottmac.com

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